Dear Editor:
Two of the January 24 editorial columns in Student Life were particularly interesting:
Firstly, Forum Editor Nathan Everly made an extremely valuable observation in noting that charges of morality intermingling with politics are often misplaced (“A lesson from Roe v. Wade anniversary”). I have yet to see a legislative bill that seeks to restrict abortion in the interest of saving constituents’ souls. The fact that abortion demographically impacts our nation (especially future progressive voters), removes any consequences to the exploitation of women, and undermines a just society by making everyone in that society optional are all points that an atheist could make. (If religions adopt these positions, perhaps it is because God wants a healthy society, too). The civil rights movement was not unwarranted religious interference in politics, even though it was organized out of churches and led by a minister who regularly invoked God.
While the Catholic Key column to which he refers might suggest a genuine pro-life position must be more than opposition to abortion, I doubt it suggests a pro-life position can lack opposition to abortion. Any practice that eliminates over 1 million Americans each year and tells the nation’s children their very existence can be traded for other considerations warrants special attention.
Secondly, speaking of special attention, I reserve that for Christian Sherden’s claim of “genocide” against Iraqi Sunnis. This Iraq veteran will give consideration to any good-faith criticism of the Iraq War. However, since genocide requires obedient executioners, Sherden’s charge insults every Iraq veteran as an accomplice to mass extermination.
While Sherden writes about what he thinks is going on in Iraq from his desk in London, there are plenty of men his age actually on the ground there. They are patrolling the streets, waving at kids and wondering which of the innumerable piles of trash and abandoned cars on the Iraqi roadsides might hold IEDs. They are pulling security outside meetings between United States forces and Iraqis on fixing wells, rehabilitating schools, and encouraging police presence. They are escorting medics to treat villagers in remote areas. You will not see this work appear in a headline such as “100,000th Iraqi Life Saved,” because it is easy to track casualty counts and nearly impossible to track deaths that did not happen.
If you are looking for something more closely resembling genocide in Iraq, I would suggest that Sherden study Saddam’s systematic campaigns against the Kurds and Shiites over the past decade. Or look to today’s suicide bomber who willingly blows up people simply out shopping at the market, for whom the term “insurgent” is too dignified. If still unconvinced, you may wish to enlist, volunteer for overseas duty, and then demonstrate to your fellow soldiers how to avoid participating in genocide.
-Bryan Kirchoff
University College
We are going to live!
Dear Editor:
My brain hurts after reading Greg Allen’s article, “You are going to die” (Feb. 2, 2007). This hurt, I assure you, cannot be treated even by the strongest pharmaceutical drug available. I fail to find reason in Allen’s sloppy, severely hypothetical and crudely blended stories-all of which involved “cold heat,” living on a star and a “homogeneous blob of subatomic goo.” With this in mind, there are several things I’d like to point out.
Firstly, you may believe that every speck of our existence will “disintegrate into an equal distribution of cold heat” (whatever that means), but I believe in living beyond the gravestone. I, along with the optimistic bulk of Wash. U., stand for the notion that anyone can transcend both space and time. All you need is faith and commitment.
Secondly, it is unfortunate you decided to mention North Korea so blindly. It may be your element of satire, but I do not find it clever and I do not find it funny. Newsweek has stated that North Korea is the “worst human rights violating state today.” One of our hard-working student organizations, Liberation in North Korea (LiNK), is committed to promoting awareness about the current crises. North Korea comes under scrutiny only when missile-based saber rattling occurs; the world sleeps while labor camps continue to exist in the current communist regime. With your thoughtless association to “nukes,” you are demeaning individuals who have sought to remind others of the day we decided “Never Again.” I ask you to be careful with your references.
Finally, although I reject your article’s excessive reminders of death, I am okay with you and your legacy becoming victims of the “delete key.” (Bummer for you, I guess). Rest assured in knowing I am not accusing you of some unconscious macabre-fetish. Needless to say, we know of our mortality-we’re not stupid. So as I eagerly delete your article from my memory, I apologize-only to you-for my lecture about North Korea. It is just one human being’s attempt to make a difference in this world.
-Kevin Chung
Class of 2009